Plastic is both good and bad, Susan Freinkel, local author contends

When Susan Freinkel decided to write a book about plastic, she vowed to spend an entire day not touching the stuff. The plan lasted about ten seconds. After she woke up, she walked into the bathroom to use the toilet. She suddenly realized the seat was plastic, which meant she couldn’t sit down. Freinkel quickly changed plans. Instead of not touching plastic for a day, she would write down all the plastic things she touched in a day. The list came to 195 objects.

Freinkel’s book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, explores eight plastic objects – the comb, the chair, the Frisbee, the IV bag, the Bic lighter, the grocery bag, the soda bottle, and the credit card – to explain the incredible popularity of the material, its benefits, and its downsides. It’s an important, yet entertaining, look at the issue.

Berkeleyside caught up with Freinkel to ask about her discoveries.

Q: Why did you decide to write a book about plastic?

A: In San Francisco, where I live, there’s been a lot of talk about the problems of plastic for several years. I decided to try getting through one whole day without touching anything plastic. The absurdity of this experiment became clear ten seconds into the appointed morning when I walked into the bathroom and realized the toilet seat was plastic. So instead, I spent the day writing down everything I touched that was plastic. By day’s end I was staggered to see how thoroughly synthetic materials permeated my life. Like most people, I completely overlooked the extent to which modern life depends on plastic.

Q: What did you learn about plastic that most surprised you?

A: I was shocked to realize how fast our world became plasticized. In 1940, few plastics existed and scarcely anything was made of plastic. Today, there are thousands of different types of plastic and the average person is never more than three feet from something plastic. Even after years of research, I keep discovering plastic in unexpected places. For instance, the tiny beads in face scrubs are often made of plastic. Or here’s one for the yuck files: It’s also an ingredient of chewing gum.

Q: Why is the book subtitled “A Toxic Love Story”?

A: In researching the history of plastic, I was struck by how our relationship with it resembled a love affair gone bad. People initially were infatuated with these new materials, eager to use them in every possible way. In the ’40s, pollsters found that “cellophane” was considered one of the most beautiful words in the English language, after “mother” and “memory.” By the 1970s, when I was a teenager, plastic had acquired a much worse reputation; it was the stuff of pink flamingos, shiny suits, tacky furniture. It was synonymous with shoddy and fake. Today we’re discovering truly serious problems because of our reliance on plastic-health hazards, wasting of resources, pollution. And yet every year, the amount of plastic produced and consumed goes up. We’re trapped in an unhealthy dependence, the hallmark of a toxic relationship.